Truth   First  and   Faith  Afterwards 


Morality  Without  God 


0             •                                                  Including  Letter  to 
Right  Rev.   Bishop  Anderson 

1 

A      Lecture      Delivered     Before 

the     Independent      Religious 

^                                 Society,  Orchestra   Hall, 

Michigan      Ave.     and     Adams, 

Chicago.  Sunday    at    II    A.   M. 



^^|^^KL  J^^jjBpg^^5 

Y 

By 

M.  M.  MANGASARIAN 

\ 


CHICAGO,  ILL.,  Oct.  23,  1905. 
Right  Rev.   Bishop  Anderson, 

Chicago,  111. 
Reverend  and  Dear  Sir: — 

Last  Sunday's  papers  announced  that  the  Episcopal  Church  has 
arranged  for  a  series  of  meetings  in  this  city  "to  arouse  a  national 
revival  of  interest  in  church  extension  at  home  and  abroad."  The  re- 
port also  furnished  the  names  of  the  distinguished  speakers  who  will 
address  these  meetings  at  Orchestra  Hall. 

I  write  this  note  to  suggest  that,  if  agreeable  to  you  and  your  com- 
mittee, a  representative  of  your  church  be  sent  next  Sunday  morning 
to  deliver  an  address  before  the  Independent  Religious  Society,  which 
holds  its  Sunday  meetings  at  Orchestra  Hall.  We  shall  be  very  much 
pleased  to  have  you  deliver  this  address,  but  it  will  be  equally  agree- 
able to  us  to  welcome  anyone  whom  you  may  delegate  in  your  place. 

If  you  have  no  objection,  I  request  that  your  address  be  on  the 
following  important  and  timely  question :  "Can  there  be  any  morality 
without  a  belief  in  God?"  This  subject  will  offer  you,  or  your  repre- 
sentative whom  you  may  send  in  your  place,  an  opportunity  to  show 
the  importance  of  the  church  in  the  moral  education  of  the  people. 

It  is  understood,  of  course,  that  the  lecturer  of  the  Independent 
Religious  Society  will  be  upon  the  platform  with  you  at  Orchestra  Hall, 
to  introduce  you,  and  to  present  his  thoughts  on  the  same  subject.  You 
may  speak  first,  or  if  you  prefer  to  make  the  closing  address,  there  will 
be  no  objection  to  it. 

Let  me  assure  you  that  this  meeting  will  not  be  in  the  nature  of  a 
debate,  as  no  interruptions  from  the  audience  or  comments  by  the  lec- 
turer upon  your  address  will  be  permitted.  Immediately  upon  the  con- 
clusion of  the  two  addresses,  the  house  will  be  dismissed. 

If  it  will  be  a  help  to  you  to  know  in  advance  what  position  I 
will  take  on  the  subject  of  the  proposed  addresses,  let  me  say  as 
clearly  as  I  can,  that  I  will  try  to  show  that  morality  is  independent 
of  a  belief  in  God  or  gods,  and  that,  therefore,  church  attendance  is 
not  essential,  but  that,  on  the  contrary,  often  church  going  retards  both 
intellectual  and  moral  progress;  and  further,  that  the  countries  in 
which  a  larger  proportion  of  the  people  go  to  church,  and  the  Ages  of 
Faith,  in  which  everybody  went  to  church,  are  and  have  been,  the  least 
moral. 

Hoping  that  you  will  not  refuse  to  come  and  present  your  views 
on  this  serious  question  to  the  large  audience  which  will  receive  you 
most  cordially  at  Orchestra  Hall,  next  Sunday  morning, — or  if  you  can- 
not come  next  Sunday,  on  any  other  Sunday  morning  that  you  may 
appoint, — I  remain, 

Yours  with  all  good  wishes, 

M.  M.  MANGASAMAN. 


1051149 


\x 


#loraltt.p  IDitljout  (Pob. 

When  I  invited  Bishop  Anderson  of  the  Episcopal  Church 
of  this  city  to  address  you,  it  was  from  a  sincere  desire  to 
give  you  an  opportunity  to  hear  in  this  house,  and  under  the 
auspices  of  this  movement,  a  strong  and  comprehensive  state- 
ment from  the  other  side,  if  I  may  use  that  expression.  I  in- 
vited the  bishop  because  he  is  freer  on  Sundays  than  the 
average  clergyman  who  has  his  own  people  to  preach  to,  and 
in  the  second  place,  because  he  has  the  authority  to  send  some- 
one in  his  place  if  he  could  not  come  himself.  In  the  third 
place,  I  addressed  my  letter  to  the  Episcopalians  because  they 
were  to  have  a  convention  in  this  same  hall  for  the  purpose  of 
rousing  interest  in  church  work. 

The  Right  Reverend  Bishop  Anderson  of  Chicago  should 
have  accepted  cordially  our  invitation,  yet  not  even  of  the  cour- 
tesy of  a  reply  has  he  deemed  either  you  or  me  worthy.  I  do 
not  know  how  to  explain  the  good  bishop's  indifference  to 
our  invitation,  except  by  saying  that,  either  the  bishop  con- 
sidered us  hopelessly  beyond  the  saving  power  of  his  religion, 
or  that  in  his  own  heart  he  considered  his  creed,  while  good 
enough  for  the  unquestioning,  a  little  antiquated  for  an  in- 
quiring American  audience.  But  the  fact  is  now  on  record 
that  he  was  invited  to  deliver  his  message  to  us,  and  he  has 
not  even  acknowledged  the  invitation.  To  reconcile  such  ac- 
tion with  the  spirit  of  "brotherly  love,"  publicly  professed  by 
the  bishop,  or  with  the  divine  command  to  preach  the  gospel 
to  every  creature,  will  require  considerable  mental  dexterity. 

We  have  heard  the  bishop  and  his  people  sing  the  hymn 

"Onward,  Christian  soldiers,  marching  as  to  war." 
Where  are  the  soldiers?  Why  do  they  avoid  a  conflict 
if  they  are  soldiers?  We  did  not  invite  them  to  a  fight ;  we 
did  not  ask  them  to  a  debate ;  we  did  not  care  to  enter  into 
a  "duel  of  words,"  as  some  papers  have  put  it.  Far  from  it; 
we  assured  the  bishop  that  there  would  be  no  questions  asked 
by  the  audience,  and  no  comments  permitted.  He  would  lis- 
ten to  our  message  and  deliver  his.  But  suppose  we  had  in- 
vited him  to  a  clash  of  ideas — to  an  argument — suppose  we 
had  asked  him  to  give  us  "the  reasons  for  the  hope  that  is 
in  him,"  as  the  Bible  says — how  could  he  decline  such  an  in- 
vitation? The  Apostle  Paul  reasoned  before  pagan  rulers, 
and  from  Mars  Hill,  in  Athens,  he  preached  to  pagan  philoso- 


phers — to  doubters.  Why  should  Bishop  Anderson  have  less 
courage,  or  be  more  cautious  ? 

When  a  great  cause,  or  a  cause  that  has  been  great  once, 
declines  a  public  opportunity  to  advance  its  interests,  to  justify 
its  claims,  to  convince — to  convert,  it  is  a  pretty  sure  sign  that 
its  fires  are  burning  low,  and  that  it  has  fallen  into  the  "sere 
and  yellow  leaf." 

Christianity,  once  an  agressive  and  virile  movement,  now 
resorts  to  apologetics,  compromise  and  concession  to  prolong 
her  life.  She  seeks  shelter  against  the  spirit  of  the  age.  She 
is  cultivating  the  art  of  silence.  Yes,  Christianity  is  seeking  a 
lower  level.  It  attacks  wooden  idols  seven  thousand  miles 
away,  but  at  home, — in  the  presence  of  intellectual  inquiry,  it 
is  paralyzed. 

Of  course  it  could  be  said  that  if  we  wished  to  hear  the 
bishop's  gospel  we  could  have  gone  to  his  church.  Yes,  we 
could.  But  so  could  he  have  come  to  us.  Furthermore,  the 
bishop  does  not  say  to  the  Hindoo,  or  to  the  Japanese,  "If 
you  want  my  religion,  come  and  get  it."  He  sends  it  to  them, 
and  he  even  asks  for  iron-clads  to  compel  the  Japanese  and 
the  Chinese  to  hear  his  gospel.  Yet  at  home  he  will  not  step 
around  the  corner  to  deliver  his  message  to  us. 

The  invitation  to  the  bishop  is  a  standing  one ;  it  will  never 
be  withdrawn. 

The  same  invitation  is  extended  herewith,  this  morning, 
to  any  clergyman  or  layman  who  is  willing  to  come  and  deliver 
his  message  to  us  and  to  hear  ours — on  one  condition,  however 
— that  the  clergyman  or  the  layman  who  accepts  our  invitation 
shall  come  as  the  representative  of  his  denomination  or  church 
— he  must  come  with  his  credentials — he  must  be  commissioned 
by  his  church  to  speak  for  the  church.  And  whenever  any 
denomination  in  this  city  or  country  shall  send  a  delegate  to 
address  us,  he  will  be  received  with  the  greatest  cordiality, 
and  his  message  shall  be  listened  to  in  a  spirit  of  fairness. 

The  question :  Can  there  be  any  morality  without  a  be- 
lief in  God,  is  a  fundamental  one,  and  the  fact  that  we  are 
willing  to  study  it  proves  that  we  take  more  than  a  superficial 
interest  in  what  might  be  called  radical  problems.  To  this 
question  the  first  answer  is  that  of  philosophy,  and  the  second 
is  that  of  history.  This  morning  we  will  confine  ourselves  to 
the  theoretical  or  philosophical  aspect  of  the  question. 
6 


What  is  there  in  a  belief  in  God  which  should  be  indispensa- 
ble to  the  moral  life  ?  Why  should  the  moral  life  be  inseparably 
associated  with  a  belief  in  God?  The  theological  position,  in 
which  you  and  I  were  brought  up,  is,  that  morality  is  impos- 
sible without  a  belief  in  God.  The  scientist's  position  is  that 
morality  is  independent  of  a  belief  in  God.  The  scientist  does 
not  deny  dogmatically,  the  existence  of  a  God.  The  scientist 
is  far  from  denying  even  that  there  is  at  the  heart  of  the  uni- 
verse a  mystery, — an  insoluble  problem,  at  least  a  problem  that 
hitherto  has  refused  to  reveal  its  secret  to  the  human  mind, — 
but  he  contends  that  to  associate  the  moral  life  with  this  mys- 
tery, this  insoluble  problem,  is  to  envelope  it  in  darkness  and 
uncertainty. 

"No  God,  no  morals,"  says  the  theologian.  He  even  earn- 
estly desires  all  unbelievers  in  his  creed  to  be  immoral.  He  is 
really  grieved  and  disappointed  when  he  finds  goodness  among 
unbelievers  in  his  religion.  He  knows  that  the  people  must 
have  morality.  He  knows  that  the  world  cannot  last  without 
morality,  and  if  he  can  get  the  people  to  think  that  they  can't 
have  morality  without  his  creed,  the  future  of  his  creed  will 
be  secure. 

He  either  denies  that  goodness  without  his  creed  is  good- 
ness at  all,  or  he  tries  to  show  that  the  credit  of  it  really  be- 
longs to  his  religion.  These  good  unbelievers  are  really  be- 
lievers, without  knowing  it,  argues  the  theologian.  If  the  Jap- 
anese can  be  patriotic  and  honest,  it  is  due  to  Christian  missions, 
declares  the  preacher.  If  Darwin  and  Huxley  were  noble  men, 
it  was  because  they  lived  in  a  Christian  atmosphere.  In  short, 
directly  or  indirectly,  according  to  the  theologian,  his  religion 
is  responsible  for  all  the  goodness  in  the  world.  We  shall  not 
stop  to  inquire,  for  the  present,  how  so  conceited  and  partisan 
a  spirit  can  be  reconciled  with  true  morality.  But  it  is  evident 
that  in  associating  belief  with  morality  the  preacher  is  trying 
to  save  "belief,"  not  morality. 

But  how  are  we  going  to  dislodge  him  from  his  position  ?  It 
is  as  if  the  Czar  of  Russia,  whose  people  are  having  a  strenuous 
time  just  now,  were  to  say  to  them,  "You  cannot  have  either 
order  or  peace  in  Russia  without  the  autocracy."  He  knows 
the  people  desire  order  and  security,  and  hopes  to  make  autoc- 
racy permanent  by  associating  it  with  the  things  the  people 
want.  It  is  like  the  Republican  party  going  before  the  country 
7 


and  saying  "You  cannot  have  prosperity  in  America,  unless 
you  keep  the  Republican  party  in  power,"  or  the  Democrats 
claiming  that  they  alone  can  save  the  country.  It  is  taking  ad- 
vantage of  the  people's  dependence  upon  order,  peace  and  pros- 
perity to  promote  partisan  politics.  And  so  the  theologian 
who  says  "You  cannot  have  morality  unless  you  have  my 
creed,1'  is  trying  to  play  the  role  of  a  politician.  He  too 
would  see  the  country  ruined  if  that  would  advance  his  party 
or  church. 

We  wish  to  see  this  morning  how  much  truth  there  is  in 
the  theological  position.  The  believer  in  God  argues  that  to 
question  the  existence  of  God  is  a  crime.  He  insinuates,  nay, 
he  declares  boldly,  that  only  the  wicked  question  the  existence 
of  the  deity, — just  as  only  rebels  would  question  the  right  of 
the  Czar  to  be  a  despot. 

But  to  call  the  man  who  questions  the  existence  of  God 
wicked,  is  no  answer  to  his  question  at  all.  When  you  have 
no  way  of  meeting  the  argument  of  your  opponent  and  you 
attack  his  character,  you  only  prove  yourself  to  be  in  great 
distress.  To  call  a  man  whose  questions  you  can  not  answer, 
a  "monster,"  a  "blasphemer,"  a  "devil,"  is,  if  I  may  have  per- 
mission to  say  it,  the  policy  of  cowards.  If  you  cannot  answer 
his  question,  why  attack  his  character? 

But  the  theologian  knows  what  he  is  about.  If  he  can 
get  people  to  believe  that  whoever  questions  his  creed  is  a 
scoundrel  and  a  wretch,  he  will  succeed  in  associating,  in  the 
popular  mind,  inquiry  or  doubt  with  immorality,  and  thereby 
he  will  be  strengthening  his  position  that  only  believers  in 
his  creed  could  be  good.  Another  result  would  be  that,  if  he 
succeeds  in  defaming  the  character  of  the  inquirer,  people 
will  avoid  him — it  will  not  be  respectable  to  be  seen  in  his 
company  or  to  think  as  he  does,  all  of  which  will  protect  him  a 
little  longer  against  the  disturbing  inquirer. 

But,  listen  to  this :  Let  us  suppose  that  every  one  who 
questions  the  existence  of  God  is  a  villain,  would  that  relieve 
clergymen  from  the  solemn  obligation  of  producing  their  evi- 
dence— of  proving  their  dogmas? 

The  other  day  a  mass  meeting  was  held  in  one  of  our  pub- 
lic schools  to  denounce  reckless  automobile  driving.  One  of 
the  speakers,  a  clergyman,  said  that  Darwinism  and  infidelity 
were  responsible  for  criminal  driving.  This  was  the  clergy- 
8 


man's  way  of  confuting  Darwinism.  He  thinks  that  if  he  can 
prove  that  the  evolutionists  kill  people,  he  will  have  disproved 
Darwinism.  But  Darwinism  is  a  scientific  theory,  and  if  it 
is  true,  why,  even  if  it  killed  people  wholesale,  that  would  not 
prove  it  false.  If  Darwinism  is  false,  on  the  other  hand,  all  the 
painstaking  and  respect  for  human  life  on  the  part  of  Dar- 
winian automobiles  would  not  make  it  true.  Darwinism  does 
not  stand  or  fall  with  the  characters  of  automobilists.  But 
this  clergyman  had  no  other  way  of  answering  Darwinism, 
so  he  said  that.  It  is  the  argument  of  sheer  desperation.  He 
is  trifling  with  a  subject  he  feels  is  beyond  him.  Instead  of 
discussing  it,  he  calls  it  names.  Small  talk  for  small  people ! 

The  Christian  religion  in  which  we  were  brought  up, 
teaches  that  to  believe  is  a  virtue,  and — not  to  believe  is  a 
crime.  Is  it  true  ?  If  I  were  to  say  to  you,  "You  must  believe 
that  George  Washington  was  the  first  president  of  America, ' 
would  you  deserve  any  credit  for  believing  it?  The  evidence 
is  so  overwhelming  that  you  cannot  help  but  believe  it.  There 
is  no  virtue  in  believing  in  a  statement  which  cannot  be  reason- 
ably doubted. 

But  suppose  I  were  to  say  ''You  must  also  believe  that 
George  Washington  invented  the  theory  of  evolution."  Could 
you  be  blamed  for  refusing  to  credit  a  statement  which  there 
is  no  evidence  to  establish  ?  You  believe  in  the  first  statement 
because  it  agrees  with  the  facts,  you  object  to  the  second  be- 
cause it  does  not  agree  with  the  facts.  In  other  words,  you 
believe  or  question  according  to  the  nature  or  force  of  the 
evidence. 

It  is  precisely  the  same  with  religion.  The  priest  says  "God 
made  the  world  in  six  days."  If  he  can  prove  it  we  have  to 
believe  it.  If  he  can  not  prove  it,  we  are  not  to  be  blamed 
for  saying  "not  proven."  The  priest  says  Jesus  was  born  of 
a  Virgin.  We  don't  deny  it — we  ask  for  evidence.  If  a  doc- 
trine or  proposition  should  be  accepted  as  true  in  the  absence 
of  convincing  evidence,  why  then  is  not  Mohammedanism  as 
true  as  Christianity?  Why  is  not  a  bit  of  blue  glass  as  good 
as  a  God  ?  To  believe  intelligently,  one  must  have  evidence ; 
to  believe  blindly,  one  religion  is  as  good  as  another. 

The  existence  of  God  has  always  been  disputed  and  is  still 
in  dispute  today.     A  hundred  books  are  written  to  prove  his 
existence ;  a  hundred  others  question  his  existence.     A  great 
9 


thinker  in  the  eighteenth  century  said  "That  which  is  the  sub- 
ject of  eternal  dispute  cannot  be  a  foundation  for  anything." 
The  scientist,  therefore,  in  striving  to  separate  morality  from 
theology  (for  it  is  theology  and  not  true  religion  that  we 
object  to)  is  rendering  a  great  service  to  the  cause  of  right- 
eousness. He  is  removing  morality  from  the  sphere  of  un- 
certainty and  controversy  into  the  air  and  light  of  day. 

But  it  is  not  about  the  existence  of  God  alone  that  there  is 
uncertainty;  there  is  misunderstanding  and  disagreement  also 
about  his  character.  It  is  not  enough  to  say  there  is  a  God, — 
we  must  agree  about  his  character.  Yet  that  question  is  even 
more  in  dispute  than  his  existence.  If  the  mere  belief  in  a 
God  is  enough,  why  is  not  the  Mohammedan  God  enough? 
The  Christian  god  has  a  son,  and  you  cannot  approach  him 
except  through  his  son.  The  Mohammedan  god  has  no  son. 
How  can  they  be  the  same  being?  The  god  of  the  Christian 
believes  in  the  atoning  blood  of  Christ.  The  Mohammedan 
god  repudiates  such  an  idea.  How  can  they  be  the  same  be- 
ing? What  are  we  going  to  do, — if  we  associate  morality 
with  a  being  whose  character  is  in  dispute?  Are  they  the 
friends  of  the  moral  life,  who  perplex  our  conscience  with 
conundrums?  Even  when  we  have  decided  that  the  Moham- 
medan god  is  no  god  at  all,  and  agreed  upon  our  own  deity, 
are  we  sure  that  his  character  as  represented  to  us  is  cal- 
culated to  encourage  the  moral  life?  That  is  an  important 
point.  What  do  we  know  about  the  character  of  God  except 
what  the  priests  tell  us,  and  what  we  read  in  their  books  about 
him. 

Now,  I  wish  to  make  an  explanation.  It  is  not  the  first 
time  I  have  been  compelled  to  make  it  either.  It  is  very  un- 
pleasant to  say  unpopular  things.  To  stand  up  here  and  say 
the  things  which  make  me  appear  sacrilegious  and  blasphemous 
in  the  eyes  of  the  respectable  majority  is  not,  I  assure  you, 
a  pleasure ;  it  is  a  sacrifice.  But  I  have  undertaken  the  work 
and  I  must  do  it. 

The  character  of  God  as  painted  for  us  in  the  Bible  is  not 
calculated,  in  my  humble  opinion,  to  encourage  the  moral  life. 
The  god  of  the  Jewish  and  Christian  scriptures  is  not  a  moral 
being.  He  does  not  live  up  to  his  profession.  He  violates 
his  own  commandments.  I  do  not  say  this  hastily  or  care- 
lessly,— I  have  studied  the  question.  Take  the  commandment, 


"Thou  shalt  not  kill."  Jehovah  breaks  that  commandment  a 
hundred  times,  if  the  Bible  is  reliable.  No  sooner  had  Moses 
descended  from  Mt.  Sinai,  with  the  Ten  Commandments,  than 
God  urged  him  to  get  the  Jews  to  kill  one  another,  and  fifty 
thousand  were  slain  in  one  passion.  The  repeated  command- 
ment of  God  to  the  Jews  to  exterminate  their  neighbors, — to 
put  men,  women  and  children  to  the  edge  of  the  sword,  would 
indicate  that  he  did  not  mean  to  live  up  to  his  profession. 

In  the  same  way  he  commands  "Thou  shalt  not  steal,"  and 
then  tells  his  people  how  they  may  spoil  their  neighbors,  de- 
stroy their  altars  and  temples  and  seize  their  lands. 

He  says  "Thou  shalt  not  commit  adultery,"  and  then  com- 
mands his  soldiers  to  capture  the  daughters  of  the  Gentiles 
and  keep  them  forcibly. 

He  says  "Thou  shalt  not  bear  false  witness,"  and  on  every 
page  in  the  Old  Testament,  everything  base  is  said  of  the 
Egyptians,  the  Babylonians,  the  Assyrians,  whose  character 
modern  research  has  vindicated,  and  it  has  been  proved  that 
their  civilization  was  far  in  advance  of  that  of  their  accusers. 

He  says  "Thou  shalt  not  covet" — and  then  shows  them  the 
pleasant  lands  and  homes  of  other  peoples,  to  arouse  their 
covetousness,  to  satisfy  which  they  wade  through  a  sea  of 
blood  from  Egypt  to  the  land  of  Canaan. 

How  can  a  being,  who  does  not  live  up  to  his  profession, — 
who  breaks  his  own  commandments,  be  our  moral  ideal  or 
model  ?  In  our  attempt  to  reconcile  God's  conduct  with  moral- 
ity, we  resort  to  sophistry.  We  say  God  is  not  bound  by  the 
same  moral  law  that  we  are :  He  can  take  away  life,  land,  or 
property  from  one  man  and  give  it  to  another.  He  is  above  all 
law.  He  is  good  even  when  he  does  that  which  if  we  did  it 
would  make  us  criminals,  and  so  on.  Thus,  sophistry  becomes 
a  profession.  We  develop  Jesuitical  powers;  we  become  in- 
tellectual gymnasts,  dancing  on  ropes  and  splitting  hairs  to 
prove  that  God  can  break  all  the  moral  commandments  and  still 
be  our  model  and  pattern  for  morality. 

It  is  a  fact,  moreover,  that  close  indentification  with  such  a 
being  has  contributed  to  corrupt  both  the  church  and  the  state. 
Tyrants  have  claimed  the  right  to  violate  the  moral  law  when- 
ever it  interfered  with  their  personal  pleasures.  As  the 
anointed  of  God,  kings  have  tried  to  answer  all  protests  against 
their  misdeeds  by  quoting  the  example  of  God.  Priests  have 
persecuted  and  exterminated  whole  races,  and  have  given  the 


example  of  God  who  destroys  the  heretics  as  their  justification. 
The  atmosphere  created  about  us  by  the  consciousness  that 
our  moral  teacher  has  himself  done  the  very  things  he  has 
forbidden  is  an  evil  one. 

But  it  may  be  answered  that  the  Old  Testament  is  no 
longer  the  authority  it  once  was,  and  that  the  New  Testament, 
or  rather,  the  character  of  God  as  revealed  in  Christ,  is  our 
ideal.  I  have  the  highest  reverence  for  the  beautiful  things 
Jesus  is  reported  to  have  said.  I  rejoice  that  some  of  his 
words  have  made  twenty  centuries  of  the  world's  life  fragrant. 
I  would  sooner  die  this  instant  than  feel  that  I  am  guilty  of 
misrepresenting  the  facts,  of  taking  a  fact  and  twisting  it  into 
an  argument  for  my  party.  If  I  have  any  happiness  in  life, 
if  I  have  any  self-respect,  it  is  from  this  source, — that  I  am 
honest  with  the  facts. 

Yet  the  teachings  of  Jesus  condensed  in  his  direct  command 
not  to  resist  evil  is  the  very  negation  of  morality.  We  had 
recently  the  yellow  fever  in  New  Orleans.  What  did  we  do? 
We  organized  against  it,  threw  ourselves  against  it,  resisted  it. 
It  is  the  only  way  physical  evil  can  be  destroyed.  There  was 
a  time  when  if  the  cholera  came  to  a  city  it  was  said  that  God 
had  sent  it,  and  it  was  useless  to  fight  it.  Today  we  don't  care 
who  sent  it,  we  don't  want  it,  and  shall  not  have  it.  We  shall 
resist  it.  Consider  the  disclosures  of  dishonest  banking  houses 
and  insurance  companies.  What  do  we  do?  We  drag  the 
guilty  into  the  light;  we  examine,  we  investigate,  we  expose, 
we  punish,  we  do  not  say  to  these  people,  you  have  taken  so 
much  of  our  money,  take  also  what  is  left.  We  resist  evil.  In 
politics,  in  commerce,  in  every  department  of  life  we  find  that 
in  resistance  alone  is  our  salvation,  and  yet  Jesus,  the  Oriental 
monk,  believing  the  end  of  the  world  to  be  close  at  hand,  would 
tie  our  hands,  paralyze  our  will  and  give  evil,  physical  or  moral, 
a  free  field.  If  we  do  not  resist  evil  we  will  soon  be  so  incapac- 
itated for  effort,  so  emptied  of  energy  and  ambition  that  we 
will  become  the  victim  not  only  of  every  physical  pest  but  also 
of  every  moral  iniquity.  "Resist  not"  is  just  what  a  priest 
would  say  to  his  people,  and  a  king  to  his  subjects.  But 
"resist"  is  what  the  liberator  would  say  to  his  fellowmen. 

But  are  there  not  examples  of  the  highest  morality  in  the 
Christian  world?  Yes,  surely,  and  I  am  glad  to  admit  it,  but 
it  is  in  spite  of  the  Christian  creed.  It  shows  that, — listen  to 


this, — theology  is  listened  to  only  one  day  in  the  week,  the 
other  six  days  we  listen  to  common  sense.  We  are  better  than 
our  beliefs,  better  than  our  creeds.  The  Asiatic  theology 
which  we  call  inspired  has  not  succeeded  in  perverting  Anglo- 
Saxon  human  nature.  That  is  what  it  proves. 

What  importance  did  Jesus  attach  to  the  moral  life?  I^t 
us  see.  You  know  that  when  he  was  on  the  cross  there  were 
two  thieves  crucified  with  him.  One  of  them  reviled  him,  the 
other  t;aid  to  him  "Lord,  when  thou  comest  into  thy  kingdom 
remember  me,"  and  Jesus  said,  ''This  day  shalt  thou  be  with 
me  m  Paradise."  Ah,  indeed! 

What  had  this  man  done  to  deserve  such  sudden  glorifica- 
tion? It  gives  me  pain  to  say,  but  say  I  must,  that  a  greater 
slight  upon  morality  could  not  have  been  placed.  Think  of 
saying  to  a  malefactor  whom  the  laws  of  society  were  justly 
punishing, — that  his  life  of  guilt  and  crime,  that  the  thefts  and 
perhaps  murders  which  he  had  committed, — were  all  forgiven 
him.  Is  the  moral  life  as  easy  as  that?  Is  it  possible  that  by 
simply  calling  Jesus  "Lord,"  and  by  accepting  him  as  the  Son 
of  God,  a  malefactor  can  enter  heaven,  while  the  man  whose 
whole  life  has  been  above  reproach  must  go  to  perdition  if  he 
has  not  the  faith  of  the  malefactor  ?  Why  then  be  moral  at  all  ? 
What  is  required  of  men  is  that  they  use  deferential  language 
to  Jesus,  call  him  "Lord" — believe  in  him,  and  all  their  wicked- 
ness shall  not  prevent  them  from  glory.  If  in  one  moment, 
and  by  a  mere  profession,  a  thief  and  a  murderer  can  step  ahead 
of  the  righteous  and  the  honest,  then  the  Christian  religion 
is  right,  righteousness  is  but  "filthy  rags."  No  deeper  accu- 
sation could  be  brought  against  Christianity  than  that  it  calls 
righteousness  "filthy  rags."  But  is  such  a  religion — is  the 
example  of  the  malefactor  taken  to  heaven,  and  his  victims 
permitted  to  go  to  everlasting  destruction — calculated  to  com- 
mand the  respect  of  noble  minds?  Charles  Spurgeon  must 
have  had  the  example  of  Jesus  in  mind  when  he  said  to  his 
hearers,  in  the  London  Tabernacle,  that  "thirty  years  of  sin 
will  take  less  than  thirty  minutes  to  wipe  out  in."  To  him 
repentance  at  the  last  moment  was  better  than  a  whole  life  of 
"godless"  morality. 

But  let  us  get  a  little  closer  to  our  subject :  When  the 
preachers  state  that  morality  is  impossible  without  God,  they 
really  mean — without  the  Christian  religion.  As  we  intimated 
13 


above,  the  Mohammedan  God  and  the  Christian  God,  not  being 
the  same,  can  not  both  be  true.  And  it  is  not  enough  to  be- 
lieve in  the  Christian  God,  one  must  also  believe  in  Christ,  the 
Holy  Ghost,  the  atonement,  and  so  on.  Hence,  the  Christian 
religion  is  the  only  power  that  can  save  the  world,  according  to 
the  preachers.  Let  us  follow  this  thought  and  see  where  it  will 
lead  us  to.  If  you  have  imagination  try  to  bring  the  whole 
world  before  your  mind's  eye.  Think  of  the  millions  upon  mil- 
lions of  human  beings  dwelling  upon  its  surface — of  the  five 
hundred  millions  of  Buddhists,  the  two  hundred  millions  of 
Moslems,  the  one  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  Brahmans,  and 
to  these  add  the  millions  who  follow  Confucius,  who  profess 
Shintoism,  Judaism,  Jainism,  and  the  millions  who  once  fol- 
lowed Zoroaster,  Zeus,  Apollo,  Mithra  and  Isis.  Compare  with 
this  tremendous  host  the  number  of  people  who  during  the  last 
two  thousand  years  have  called  themselves  Christians,  and  tell 
me  if  it  would  be  inspiring  to  think  that  the  Christians  who  are 
but  a  handful  compared  with  this  innumerable  majority  are  the 
only  people  who  can  be  moral?  If  the  heathen,  so  called  by 
Christians,  can  be  as  moral  as  ourselves,  then  Christianity  can 
not  claim  to  be  the  only  divine  faith,  but  if  it  is,  as  the 
preachers  claim,  the  only  power  that  can  save,  then  think  of 
the  gloom  and  the  despair  which  must  be  the  portion  of  every 
sensitive  soul  who  realizes  the  hopelessness  of  the  situation! 
For  thousands  of  years  our  humanity  was  denied  the  Christian 
religion,  and  even  now,  twenty  centuries  after  the  birth  of 
Jesus,  only  a  handful,  compared  with  the  earth's  population, 
have  accepted  the  only  true  religion.  Is  this  inspiring? 

If  we  were  to  paint  the  globe  in  two  colors — black  and  white 
— allowing  the  black  to  represent  the  "heathen,"  and  the  white 
the  Christian,  we  would  see  spread  before  our  eyes  a  limitless 
sea  of  inky  blackness,  with  a  few  white  dots  floating  in  it.  Oh, 
how  long  will  it  take  before  this  black  earth  of  ours  shall 
change  its  color?  If  we  feel  uncomfortable  when  we  see  an  ani- 
mal maltreated,  how  can  we  have  the  heart  to  subscribe  to  a 
doctrine  that  denies  to  the  great  majority  of  our  human  fellows, 
not  only  future  bliss,  but  even  the  right  to  be  moral?  If  instead 
of  being  a  religion  of  love,  Christianity  were  a  religion  of  hate, 
could  it  be  less  generous?  If  instead  of  being  the  religion  of 
the  "meek  and  lowly"  it  were  the  religion  of  the  proud  and  the 
haughty,  could  it  have  been  more  conceited?  That  people 
14 


can  enjoy  a  religion  which  blackens  the  face  of  all  mankind 
outside  its  pale  is  a  pitiful  commentary  on  human  nature. 

But  let  us  follow  the  lead  of  the  preacher  a  little  further.  He 
says  there  can  be  no  morality  without  God,  which  means,  no 
morality  without  the  Christian  religion.  But  which  Christian 
religion  does  he  mean  ?  The  Catholics  denounce  protestantism 
as  a  perversion ;  the  Protestants  call  Catholicism  an  imposture. 
Which,  then,  is  the  Christian  religion  without  which  there  can 
be  no  morality?  If  the  one  is  as  Christian  as  the  other,  why 
then  do  they  try  to  convert  each  other — why  do  the  Catholics 
send  missionaries  to  the  Protestants  ?  Evidently,  it  must  be  the 
protestant  religion  which  is  alone  Christian,  at  least  we  in  this 
country  seem  to  think  so.  If  true,  then  there  is  no  morality 
possible  without  the  protestant  faith.  Now  see  to  what  a  small 
faith  and  to  what  a  pale  and  sickly  hope  the  preacher  has 
brought  us.  Ah !  he  has  led  us  into  an  alley — moldy,  stuffy, 
and  choking.  The  world  is  no  longer  in  sight,  the  sun  and 
stars  have  disappeared,  the  winds  that  sweep  the  face  of  the 
earth  and  the  sky  are  heard  no  more.  Yes,  we  are  in  an  alley ! 

Now  this  protestant  religion  which  is  alone  the  hope  of  the 
world,  what  is  it?  A  moment  ago  we  asked,  which  is  the 
Christian  religion?  We  now  ask,  which  is  the  protestant  re- 
ligion? Is  it  the  church  of  England?  Is  it  Lutheranism?  Is 
it  Methodism?  Is  it  Presbyterianism  ?  Is  it  Unitarianism ?  Is 
it  the  Baptist  Church  ?  Is  it  Christian  Science  ?  We  believe  we 
have  mentioned  enough  to  select  from.  It  will  not  do  to  say 
that  all  these  sects  are  equally  Christian.  Why,  then,  are  they 
separated?  Why  do  not  the  Baptists  commune  at  the  Lord's 
table  with  the  Presbyterians,  and  why  do  the-  Episcopalians 
claim  that  they  alone  have  the  apostolic  ordination  ?  A  Metho- 
dist preacher  is  not  allowed  to  speak  from  an  Episcopal  altar — 
his  ordination  is  not  considered  valid,  and  his  church  is  only  a 
sect  in  the  eyes  of  the  church  of  England.  Which  of  these, 
then,  is  the  true  protestant  religion  without  which  no  morality 
is  possible  in  this  world  or  salvation  in  the  next?  The  propo- 
sition that  there  can  be  no  morality  without  God  when  ana- 
lyzed, comes  to  this :  There  can  be  no  morality  without  the 
protestant  religion,  and  it  is  as  yet  uncertain  which  is  the 
Protestant  religion. 

How  educated  people  can  find  cheer  and  comfort  in  an 
alley  and  mistake  its  darkness  for  a  horizon — how  they  can  be 


happy  in  the  belief  that  no  one  can  be  good  or  brave  without 
believing  as  they  do, — is  beyond  my  comprehension.  And  when 
we  remember  that  this  Protestant  religion  did  not  exist  before 
the  sixteenth  century — that  it  is  only  about  three  hundred 
years  old,  and  that,  if  it  is  the  only  true  religion,  it  waited  a 
long  time — until  mankind  had  reached  middle  life — until  the 
world  had  begun  to  turn  gray — before  it  commenced  to  minis- 
ter to  its  needs — we  begin  to  realize  that  there  is  no  thorough- 
fare to  the  alley  to  which  the  preacher  has  conducted  us — for 
it  is  a  blind  alley,  and  we  feel  creeping  upon  us  the  chill  of 
death  and  despair! 

Oh,  let  us  turn  back !  Let  us  hasten  out  of  this  darkness ! 
Let  us  return  to  the  kisses  of  the  sun  and  the  wind,  to  the  air 
and  the  light!  To  think  that  the  whole  world,  past  and 
present,  has  been,  is,  and  will  be  irrevocably  lost,  unless  it  ac- 
cepts our  three  hundred  years  old  and  much-divided  religion ! 
What  gentle  and  refined  mind  can  stand  the  strain  ?  Who  can 
walk  straight  under  the  weight  of  such  crushing  pessimism? 
Is  it  not  fortunate  that  only  one  day  in  seven  is  devoted  to 
church-going  ? 

When  I  was  a  Presbyterian  minister,  one  of  the  hymns  we 
used  to  sing  in  church  began  with  the  words  "From  Green- 
land's Icy  Mountains,"  and  went  on  to  speak  of  "India's  Coral 
Strands"  and  "Africa's  Sunny  Fountains,"  ending  with  this 
sentiment : 

''Where  every  prospect  pleases 
And  man  alone  is  vile." 

Think  of  the  essentially  unmoral  mind  of  the  man  who 
could  write  such  a  hymn,  and  of  the  callousness  of  the  people 
who  can  sing  it !  Think  of  putting  so  false,  so  uncharitable,  so 
conceited,  so  mean  and  small  a  thought  into  music,  and  singing 
it!  If  they  wept  over  it,  if  they  mourned  over  it,  it  would  be 
less  incongruous,  but  to  sit  in  their  pews  and  with  the  help  of 
organ  and  piano  to  sing  about  the  vileness  of  the  earth's  greater 
population  seems  to  me  in  my  haste,  to  lend  considerable  sup- 
port to  the  doctrine  of  total  depravity.  The  Christian  will 
trade  with  the  "heathen,"  he  will  travel  into  their  country,  he 
will  trust  them  in  business,  but,  on  Sunday,  when  he  is  in 
church,  when  he  is  kneeling  at  the  altar,  in  the  house  of  his 
God,  he  calls  them  "vile."  If  the  only  way  we  can  appreciate 
our  own  morality  is  by  defaming  the  majority  of  humanity. 
16 


how  contemptible  must  our  morality  be?  When  we  sing  that 
all  the  Hindoos,  the  Chinese,  the  Japanese  and  the  rest  of  the 
non-Christian  world  are  "vile," — that  there  is  no  love,  no  devo- 
tion, no  patriotism,  no  honesty,  no  friendship,  no  temperance, 
no  philanthropy,  no  chastity,  no  truthfulness,  no  mercy  and 
no  honor,  in  these  heathen  lands — when  we  deny  that  in  these 
parts  of  the  world  any  virtue  can  exist,  are  we  not  bearing 
false  witness  against  our  neighbors? 

To  preach  the  brotherhood  of  man  in  one  breath,  and  in 
the  next,  to  call  your  brothers  who  do  not  believe  in  your  creed 
"vile,"  has  about  it  the  unmistakable  air  of  cant  and  hypocrisy. 
Is  it  any  wonder  that  the  "heathen"  distrust  the  Christian  na- 
tions of  Europe  and  America  ? 

A  clergyman  of  Chicago,  one  of  our  leading,  popular,  suc- 
cessful, talented,  and  respected  preachers — one  who  has  had 
phenomenal  success  as  a  minister  of  the  Gospel,  and  who  ad- 
dresses the  largest  Christian  audiences  in  the  country,  speaking 
to  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association,  declared  that  "this 
earth  would  have  been  a  hell  if  Christ  had  not  died  on  Gol- 
gotha." There  must  be  something  of  the  nature  of  a  blight  in 
a  creed  that  can  force  from  the  lips  of  an  educated  and  benevo- 
lent man  such  unlovely  words.  And  there  is.  It  is  so  self-cen- 
tered, so  intolerant,  so  exclusive,  that  in  its  eyes  the  whole 
world,  except  its  own  little  corner,  is  nothing  but  "a  hell."  To 
intimate  that  the  world  which  gave  us  our  republic,  the  world 
which  gave  us  our  constitution — our  jurisprudence,  our  law 
courts — the  world  which  has  crowded  our  galleries  with  works 
of  imperishable  beauty,  and  our  libraries  with  immortal  poetry, 
literature  and  philosophy — which  has  given  to  our  universities 
their  classical  curriculum — which  created  Socrates,  Plato,  Aris- 
totle, Pericles,  Seneca,  Cicero  and  the  Antonines — a  world 
whose  ruins  are  more  wonderful  than  anything  we  possess, 
whose  dead  are  more  immortal  than  our  living — to  suggest 
that  this  pre-Christian  world  as  well  as  the  non-Christian  coun- 
tries to-day,  was  "a  hell,"  takes  my  breath  away.  I  never  im- 
agined that  this  fearful  Asiatic  creed  could  smite  or  sting  an 
otherwise  wholesome  soul  into  such  a  contortion.  What  is 
there  in  this  Palestinian  Jew  whom  our  famous  preacher  wor- 
ships as  his  god  that  can  tempt  a  man  to  bear  even  false  witness 
for  his  sake  ?  Heavens  !  How  can  a  man  with  the  example  of 
heoric  Japan  fresh  and  fragrant  before  him,  think  of  this  earth 
17 


as  a  hell  without  his  "shibboleth?"  Victor  Hugo  says  "It  is  a 
terrible  thing  to  have  been  a  priest  once ;"  it  is  not  less  terrible 
to  be  an  orthodox  protestant  preacher  to-day.  And  why  ? 

Because  for  the  preacher  there  is  something  higher  than 
the  truth — his  creed. 

But  the  proposition  that  there  can  be  no  morality  without 
God — that  the  earth  would  be  a  hell  without  Christ,  in  its 
final  analysis  means  this:  People  will  not  be  moral  without 
the  belief  in  a  future  life.  It  is  the  hope  of  future  rewards 
which  gives  to  the  God  idea  its  value.  St.  Paul  himself  ad- 
mitted that  if  the  Christians  believed  in  Christ  for  this  life 
only  "they  were  of  all  men  the  most  miserable."  Were  the 
clergy  to  tell  their  flocks  this  morning  that  although  they  felt 
sure  of  the  existence  of  God,  they  had  their  doubts  about 
another  life,  how  many  of  them  would  return  to  worship  on 
the  following  Sunday  ?  Yes,  it  is  the  mingled  hope  and  fear  of 
the  future  which  gives  the  belief  in  a  God  its  importance.  If 
there  were  no  death — if  men  could  live  here  forever,  they 
would  not  much  concern  themselves  about  spirits  and  invisible 
beings.  It  is  the  idea  that  when  we  die  we  fall  into  the  hands 
of  God,  the  idea  that  it  is  a  terrible  thing,  as  the  Bible  says, 
to  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  living  God — it  is  this  idea  which 
lights  the  altars,  bends  the  knee,  and  builds  churches.  To 
placate  the  deity  that  he  may  reward  us  in  the  future  is, 
frankly,  the  object  of  all  religious  ceremonies.  If  this  be  true, 
then  the  proposition  that  without  God  there  can  be  no  morality 
amounts  to  this :  Without  future  rewards  and  punishments 
no  man  will  live  a  moral  life. 

This  doctrine  leads  to  the  following  conclusions :  First, 
man  is  naturally  immoral,  and  the  only  way  he  can  be  arrested 
in  his  career  of  vice  and  crime  is  to  promise  him  future  re- 
wards if  he  will  behave  himself,  and  to  menace  him  with  hell- 
fire  if  he  will  not.  Secondly,  the  proposition  implies  that 
morality  per  se  is  not  desirable,  that  no  one  could  be  virtuous 
enough  to  desire  virtue  for  its  own  sake,  and  that  without  great 
and  eternal  rewards  morality  would  go  a-begging.  And  this 
is  religion !  What  then  is  atheism  ? 

Why  do  people  desire  health?  Certainly  not  for  any  post- 
mortem rewards.  The  health  of  the  body  is  cultivated  for  its 
own  beautiful  sake.  Health  is  joy,  it  is  power,  it  is  beauty,  it 
is  strength.  Are  not  these  enough  to  make  it  sacred  to  all 
18 


men?  But  if  the  health  of  the  body  does  not  need  the  prop 
of  future  rewards  to  commend  itself  to  us,  what  good  reason 
have  we  to  think  that  morality,  which  is  the  health  of  the 
mind,  is  a  wretched  investment  if  there  be  no  other  life? 
Morality  is  temperance.  How  can  our  ideas  about  the  un- 
seen world  change  the  nature  of  temperance  so  that  instead 
of  being1  a  virtue  it  would  become  a  stupid  and  irksome  re- 
straint ?  If  it  is  good  to  be  temperate  in  the  pursuit  of  pleasure 
or  wealth,  or  in  the  gratification  of  desire,  why  should  cur 
speculations  about  the  hereafter  alter  our  attitude  toward  the 
value  of  temperance  and  self-control  in  everything?  God  or 
no  God,  a  future  life  or  no  future  life,  is  not  temperance  bet- 
ter Than  intemperance?  To  ask  why  a  man  should  practice 
temperance  even  if  it  be  granted  that  it  is  better  than  intem- 
perance is  to  go  back  to  the  terrible  charge  that  man  is  by 
nature  a  monster,  and  that  he  will  not  behave  well  unless  he 
is  promised  enormous  returns  in  the  shape  of  eternal  rewards 
— palaces,  mansions,  crowns,  thrones,  in  the  next  world. 

Well,  if  the  preachers  are  right  it  is  a  serious  question 
whether  so  depraved  a  creature  as  man  deserves  to  be  saved  at 
all.  To  have  created  so  contemptible  a  creature  was  a  great 
enough  blunder,  but  think  of  perpetuating  his  race  forever  and 
ever! 

Let  us  see  how  much  truth  there  is  in  the  preacher's  esti- 
mate of  human  nature.  Take  the  example  of  a  father  who 
is  devoted  to  his  little  motherless  girl.  He  lives  for  her,  cares 
for  her,  protects  her,  and  provides  for  her  future  that  she 
may  feel  his  blessing  long  after  he  has  passed  away.  Will 
this  father  be  less  a  father  without  the  belief  in  future  rewards  ? 
But  to  love  and  care  for  one's  child  is  only  natural  morality, 
replies  the  clergyman.  Of  course  it  is.  And  that  is  why  it 
is  genuine,  sweet,  spontaneous,  and  untainted  with  expecta- 
tions of  a  reward.  It  never  enters  his  mind  that  he  is  going 
to  be  paid  big  wages  for  being  good  to  his  motherless  child. 
He  loved  her,  and  that  was  heaven  enough  for  him.  It  is 
artificial  morality  that  pines  for  rewards  and  sickens  and  dies 
when  the  expected  reward  is  questioned.  If  there  is  no  future 
glory,  who  will  abstain  from  meats  on  Friday,  or  sprinkle  his 
children,  or  read  the  Bible  or  listen  to  sermons?  But  the 
natural  virtues  will  spring  up  like  flowers  in  the  human  soil. 
Men  and  women  will  love,  will  sacrifice,  will  perform  heroic 
19 


deeds  of  devotion,  whatever  may  be  their  theories  concerning 
the  hereafter. 

Let  us  take  another  case.  Why  is  an  employer  of  labor 
good  to  his  men  ?  Is  it  because  he  expects  to  be  rewarded  for 
it  in  the  next  life?  Analyze  his  motives  and  you  will  find 
that  if  he  treats  his  hands  well  it  is  because  he  believes  it  to  be 
the  best  way  to  get  along  with  them,  to  earn  their  good  will, 
to  keep  his  own  self-respect,  and  to  merit  the  approval  of  the 
community  in  which  he  lives.  He  is  not  going  to  change  his 
conduct  toward  his  employes,  nor  will  the  motives  which  now 
influence  his  conduct  lose  their  force  immediately  after  he 
finds  out  that  there  is  nothing  coming  to  him  in  the  next  world 
for  being  good  and  just  to  his  workmen. 

The  theologians  appear  to  labor  under  the  impression  that 
morality  being  irksome  and  undesirable,  it  would  be  an  injus- 
tice not  to  reward  the  people  who  put  up  with  it  with  a  para- 
dise of  some  kind.  They  think  that  the  man  who  did  not  rob 
his  neighbor,  beat  his  wife  and  children,  or  get  drunk,  ought 
to  be  rewarded.  Certainly  he  ought — if  it  is  for  a  future  re- 
ward that  he  does  not  do  these  things.  If  we  have  an  influ- 
ence at  all  we  shall  see  that  these  people  who  have  denied 
themselves  the  pleasure  of  cutting  their  neighbors'  throats,  or 
of  leading  an  intemperate,  dishonest  and  brutal  life,  shall  re- 
ceive their  reward. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  some  people  are  kept  from  doing 
wrong  by  the  fear  of  a  distant  hell,  and  others  are  provoked 
to  good  works  by  the  hope  of  a  heavenly  crowTn.  But  the  mis- 
take of  the  theologian  consists  in  thinking  that  anybody  actu- 
ated by  such  motives  can  be  moral.  A  vicious  dog  is  not  made 
gentle  by  chaining  him — he  is  only  prevented  from  doing 
harm.  It  is  true  that  to  prevent  a  savage  beast  from  hurting 
people  is  a  service  to  humanity.  It  is  also  true  that  if  by 
preaching  the  fear  of  hell  the  churches  succeed  in  preventing 
vicious  men  from  doing  harm,  they  are  benefactors.  Fear, 
while  not  the  highest  motive,  is  nevertheless  quite  effective 
with  some  people.  Of  course,  as  far  as  my  own  preference 
goes,  I  would  not  preach  the  doctrine  of  everlasting  hell  even 
if  I  could  be  assured  it  was  the  only  thing  that  could  save 
mankind.  I  would  not  care  to  save  mankind  under  those  con- 
ditions. There  is  nothing  more  immoral  than  the  idea  of 
unending  torture.  The  worst  criminals  are  not  half  so  im- 


moral  as  the  creators  and  perpetrators  of  the  unquestionable 
hell  of  Christian  theology.  I  can  not  think  of  a  greater  insult 
to  the  human  conscience  than  to  say  that  this  fearful  estab- 
lishment with  its  everlasting  stench  in  our  nostrils  is  the 
parent  of  all  virtue,  and  that  if  its  fires  were  to  be  extin- 
guished there  would  be  an  end  to  human  morality. 

"It  is  quite  easy,"  I  imagine  the  preacher  saying,  "to  talk 
in  this  strain  now,  but  wait  until  you  are  on  your  death-bed." 
But  the  frightful  death-bed  scenes  we  read  of  in  religious  liter- 
ature are  generally  fictitious.  When  they  are  not  impostures,  a 
careful  investigation  will  show  that  they  are  the  effect  of 
pulpit  sensationalism.  The  dying  thoughts  of  a  sane  and 
brave  man  or  woman  are  as  free  from  torture  as  the  sleep 
which  closes  the  tired  eye-lids.  What  does  a  mother  think  of 
in  her  last  moments?  She  thinks  of  her  dear  ones — her  chil- 
dren !  whom  she  has  to  leave  motherless  in  the  world.  How 
noble  is  human  nature !  And  it  is  this  nobility  which  makes 
theology  jealous.  The  dying  mother  should  be  thinking  of  her 
God, — her  soul,  her  creed — she  should  be  trembling  with  fear, 
and  be  filled  with  consternation,  instead  of  thinking  lovingly 
and  tearfully  of  her  little  ones !  And  when  theology  can  not 
get  horrible  death-bed  scenes,  she  invents  them.  In  Theron 
Ware,  the  deacons  of  the  Methodist  church  say  to  their  minis- 
ter, "Give  us  more  of  the  death-bed  scenes  of  Voltaire  and 
Thomas  Paine."  For  a  long  time  it  was  a  part  of  the  voca- 
.tion  of  the  theologians  to  postpone  the  attack  upon  an  intel- 
lectual giant  until  he  was  dead  or  dying. 

It  is  not  true  that  when  people  come  to  die  they  confess 
that  the  preacher's  hell  and  his  heaven  are  real  after  all.  The 
other  day  a  negro  shot  his  wife  and  babe  fatally  and  ran  away. 
When  the  neighbors  arrived  upon  the  scene  of  the  tragedy, 
they  found  the  dying  mother  with  her  arms  around  her  infant 
trying  to  soothe  its  pains.  She  had  torn  a  fragment  of  her 
bodice  to  stop  with  it  the  bleeding  wound  in  the  child's  arm. 
Motherhood !  Was  she  worrying  about  her  own  soul,  about 
eternity,  about  God,  about  the  devil,  about  heaven,  about  hell ! 
Oh,  no !  She  had  one  thought  which  puts  all  preaching  to 
shame — to  ease  the  pain  of  her  dying  child.  She  forgot 
she  was  dying  herself.  She  forgot  all  about  her  future  re- 
ward— but  she  did  not  forget  her  child.  That  is  the  way 
mothers  die.  No  Christian  can  die  a  better  death. 
21 


When  preachers  can  speak  to  us  of  a  God  who  can  love 
like  this  negro  mother, — or  who  in  the  words  of  the  English 
poet,  Wordsworth,  will 

"Never  blend  his  pleasure  or  his  pride 

With  sorrow  of  the  meanest  thing  that  feels," 

then,  we  shall  worship  him, — not  for  his  heaven,  nor  from 
fear  of  his  hell,  but  for  his  own  blessed  self. 

Others  may  be  able  to  tell  whether  or  not  there  is  another 
life.  I  can  not.  But  whether  or  not  there  is  a  life  beyond  the 
grave,  I  know  that  spring  will  come  every  year,  that  the  gen- 
tle rains  will  fall,  the  sunlight  will  woo  and  kiss  all  it  meets, 
the  harvests  will  wave,  and  the  world  will  sleep  and  wake 
each  day.  In  the  same  way  I  know  that  whatever  the  preach- 
ers may  say  about  a  godless  morality,  the  charities,  the  devo- 
tions, the  humanities,  the  friendships,  and  the  loves,  will  spring 
up  eternal  in  our  daily  lives,  and  beauty  and  glory  shall  never 
perish  from  human  nature. 

"Conscience  is  born  of  love,"  wrote  Shakespeare.  In  the 
alembic  of  this  glorious  truth  all  the  terrors  of  the  Jewish- 
Christian  religion  dissolve  into  nothingness.  A  word  from 
Shakespeare,  and  the  nightmares  of  the  past  are  no  more. 
Love! — attachment,  devotion,  friendship, — behold  the  cradle 
in  which  conscience  was  born !  Fear  is  a  tomb — it  lives  upon 
hell.  Love  is  a  cradle,  nursing  into  being  and  maturity  all 
that  is  good,  all  that  is  true,  all  that  is  beautiful.  Says 
Tennyson : 

"Perplext  in   faith,  but  pure   in   deeds 
At  last  he  beat  his  music   out. 
There  lives  more  faith  in  honest  doubt, 
Believe  me,  than  in  half  the  creeds." 

This  is  music,  and  it  descends  over  the  babel  of  wrangling 
creeds,  as  the  sunlight,  after  a  long  storm,  over  the  spent  and 
weary  waves. 


inbepentient  Religious  &ocietp 

Believes 

That  the  greatest  good  in  life  is  Truth. 
Without  Truth — love,  hope,  charity 
and  all  other  human  virtues  dark- 
en. Truth  is  to  life  what  the  sun 
is  to  the  world.  We  believe  that 
the  only  Truth  which  can  be  trusted 
is  that  which  can  be  tested. 


A     000026275     8 


READ   THIS   LIST 

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